Peter runs home, opens the door and gets into the bedroom. One quick look is all he needs to notice that all of Camila's clothes are gone. Instead, he finds a pair of high heel shoes on the bed next to a letter.

He grabbed the letter that was next to the cherry red heels that he gave to Camila on their wedding anniversary. A lot of questions came into his mind when he opened the letter. Drops of sweat rolled down his forehead, as he read the letter.

  Dear Peter:

      I'm sorry that I left without saying goodbye. I didn't have the heart to tell you that I've been dealing with cancer for quite some time. I don't want to be a burden when my condition worsens, most of our disputes have been about wanting children and when I was diagnosed with cancer, I realized that I was the problem, the best decision that I could make at the moment was to leave.
       I left the high heels that you gave me on our wedding anniversary as a reminder that our love still remains. I went away to get treatment for the time being. Don't come looking for me, I'll be back soon.

With love, Camila.  💋

Peter crumpled the letter and wept.

"Honey no."

He knelt to the floor and his tears went down on his cheeks, holding on to the sheets, slightly dragging to the floor along with the high heel shoes. They fell to the ground he looked at the cherry red heels and grabbed them. He stood up, to grab his luggage to pack his things and went out to find her.

"I don't care that you have cancer. I'm going to be by your side, no matter what."

Peter grabbed his luggage from the closet and laid it open on the bed, packing his clothes, starting with his sky blue polo shirt, plain white t-shirt, 2 v-neck shirts, brown baggy pants, 2 pairs of white socks, 3 pairs of boxers and his favorite shirt which had the three wise monkeys design with big bold letters displayed: "SEE NO EVIL, HEAR NO EVIL, SPEAK NO EVIL!" in red, neatly folded in the luggage before grabbing his boots and putting it in the luggage as well, then he picked the cherry red high heels from the floor and put it within a shoe box before putting it within the luggage before closing it with the zipper.

He opened the drawers one by one, searching for his passport. He checked his closet for the second time, but it wasn't there. Peter lifted the mattress and found his passport book. He opened it to check for the expiration date.

"Good, it hasn't expired yet." He closed the passport and put it inside the fanny pack that he pulled out of the drawer.

He made a phone call to his sister-in-law, though they weren't exactly on good terms. At least he had to try, for Camila. He attempted to call three more times. His phone number was blocked from her phone and he couldn't contact her.

Guess that he had to find out for himself.

He got into the car and went to his in-laws address. Meanwhile, a woman laid her head against the seat, holding a brochure of a hospital that offered a variety of treatments depending on the cost. She received a text message from her oncologist, her former college roommate, Lilly.

(I cleared the agenda for your scheduled appointment at the clinic.}

Lilly

Camila gave a week smile before turning off the screen of her smartphone.

Peter's brother-in-law sat on the couch reading the local newspaper, one of the articles mentioning the legislators confronting a delay in funds in order to pay the medical professionals and the police. Then he flipped the pages to the sports section before honking was heard outside.

Camila's sister looked out the window to find Peter's slate Toyota Rav4 parked out front.

"Uff! The nerve of this guy!" She squawked. "What is it now, Daisy?" He asked in a disinterested, gruff voice.

"That neanderthal just parked in front of our house!" Daisy squawked, mixed with the loud honking, it irritated him.

"Yeah yeah sure." He dismissed her complaints as he kept reading as the upper edge of the newspaper covered his face.

Peter got out of the car while Daisy opened the door to yell at him. "WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE HONKING AT MY HOUSE AND INVADING MY PROPERTY!?!?"

Peter showed her the crumpled letter, interrogating her. "YOU KNEW ABOUT THIS?" Nonplussed, she held the letter and read it, her blue eyes turning left and right.

She looked at him in astonishment. By the looks of it, she didn't know about Camila's illness. Daisy put a hand over her mouth, eyes glazed, threatening to spill tears.

She stifled her sobbing, but to no avail. Peter's angered expression softened, his chest rising and falling as he watched her go into the house, leaving the front door open.

"Why didn't she tell me?... I'm her sister for goodness sake!" Daisy dried her tears with a tissue. "I took care of her when our mother passed away." Daisy blew her nose on the tissue before grabbing another one.

"I thought you knew." Peter said to her, though neither he nor Daisy got along they sat on the couch next to each other.

"If I had known, I would be joining her with her treatments and Paul would've stayed home watching his blasted baseball game!" Daisy and Paul have been married for nearly 30 years and ongoing. The two are polar opposites, her being a strict analytical clean freak, and him being a creative, laid back guy who likes to make his life as simple as possible. Is impressive that neither of them got divorced at this point.

"Daisy, if Camila had told you. You would react the same way you're acting now. You panicking and breaking down would affect her health even more, I don't blame her." Paul responded, his facial expression indifferent.

"WHO ASKED YOU?!" Daisy bellowed.

"I'm just saying that I would've done the same thing if I were in her shoes." Paul stated, reminding Peter of the high heeled shoes that he left in the trunk.

"Oh please, you hardly go to the urologist, let alone an oncologist to get your testes checked." Daisy called him slightly waving him off with a tissue in a similar fashion to how her husband dismisses her.

"My jewels are sacred woman and you know it!" He pointed at her as he stood up. "I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy."

"Now that I think about it, didn't your cousin, Danny have testical cancer?" Daisy asked him.

"Had! The man is a real trooper. I don't get how a masculine lookin' guy like him got out of the closet. I grew up with the bastard and not once have I seen him snap nor bend like a butterfly, unlike those fags that go prancing around on pride parades on TV. Ugh! Such a waste if you ask me." Paul walked out of the living room.

Peter also stood from the couch. He was not in the mood to hear bickering, it was bad enough for him that it was one of the reasons that his wife left him.

"Leaving so soon?" His sister-in-law inquired. He turned around and saw that she was staring at him, not with the usual disdain but one with a solemn gaze.

"I have to find her." Peter said, pointing at her.

"I just wanted to thank you for coming to visit. If you hadn't, I wouldn't have known about my sister's situation." Daisy told him.

"Yes. I thought that I would find her here."

"I know, if I find out where Camila is, I'll call you." Daisy unblocked Peter's phone number.

"Thank you." Peter said before leaving.

Meanwhile at the clinic, Camila sat on the waiting room until she saw Lilly walk in wearing a black dress, a white coat, and dark high heel shoes. Camila stood up from her seat and greeted her.

"Hi, Lilly!" They both hugged each other.
"Hi, Camila. It has been like, what? 18 years since we last saw each other?" The oncologist quipped.

"Yeah it has been like forever since we last seen each other in person? How are the kids?" Camila asked.

"They're doing great, thank God. Rachel is gonna come home any minute now, and Marcus is at his friends house. They are going to love you." Lilly replied as she brought Camila to her office, letting her pacient enter first before closing the door.

Peter drove off to find his wife, if she went away to get treatment. She must be at a clinic somewhere. But which one? Then he remembered the day that he returned from work. He came home exhausted, rubbing his nape from the stress that came from heavy lifting and machinery.

He recalled seeing a burgundy and white brochure of a hospital that was on the red, fuzzy carpet. He picked it up and saw the logo, Camila got out of the shower and saw him look at the brochure.

"Do you want anything, hun?" Camila had asked him until she saw him hold the brochure.

St. Vincent Hospital.

He stepped on the gas, increasing his speed up to 45 MPH.

Lilly sat on her chair and opened the folder that contained Camila's records, one of them showing a sonogram of her uterus and a small lump that was registered the size and mass of the ovarian cyst.

"It shows here that you have a cyst that has increased 13% of its mass." Lilly notified.

"Is it bad?" Camila asked.

"Only if it's not treated in time. It may be small, but left untreated, it would cause pelvic pain. Not all ovarian cysts are cancerous. Have you been having menorrhagia?" Lilly asked her.

"No." She shook her head. "I've been having cramps and heat flashes, but I also felt that some parts of my body have turned coarse." Camila said, then she raised the hem her shirt to reach below her left breast, showing some discoloration of her cream skin.

"It seems that you've shown signs of menopause. But the skin discoloration is not natural. I need to run a diagnostic first before giving you the right treatment." Lilly commented. They both stood up before entering into another room.

"What are you doing now, woman?" Paul asked, annoyed with one of his wife's occurrences.

"I'm on the phone!"

"You better not be calling that electrician, the last time he was here, he did a terrible job applying the electric outlet of the attic. The outlet short circuited and I ended up fixing it myself! A complete waste of money!" Paul reprimanded her with his gruff voice.

"I'm calling my sister, you nitwit! I wouldn't be calling for outside help if you got off your lazy butt!" Daisy retorted while she was waiting for her sister to pick.

Daisy shrieked when her husband groped her glutes. "At least my lazy butt is still firm." Paul says as he smirked before opening the fridge to grab a Dr. Pepper. She glared at him while he smiled like a naughty teenager. Great, now she had to clean up the fridge again.

Peter drove off to Minnesota which was a 3 hour drive. He was heading up to 60 MPH, when a tracker picked up that Peter drove past the speed limit. A police car gave chase, the police lights and sirens blaring.

Just his luck.

"All done." Lilly finished the scan while Camila sat, adjusting her shirt and buttoning her jeans. "The results will come out in a couple of days. After I finish attending the other patients, I'll take you to my place and help you unpack." Lilly said.

"No need, I only brought one luggage."

"But I want to."

Camila checked on her phone and saw that she had 3 missed calls, from her sister.

She was about to call her but she decided against it. Camila walked out of the room that had the testing equipment and she heard her phone ring. Only this time, it was her brother-in-law that was calling her. She accepted the call and hold up her phone.

"Hey, Paul, how are you?"
"A little disappointed, but don't mind me. How are you feeling?" Paul asked as his gruff voice had a relaxing tone.
"I'm fine."
"I'd believe you, but knowing how women can be. I'm guessing that everything is not fine with you."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"I found out about your situation and your sister is not happy about it." Camila facepalmed as she was hearing this. "I don't blame you, if I were in a similar situation, I would've done the same thing though knowing my loving wife." She rolled her eyes on the way he called her sister: my loving wife. "She wouldn't let me go. And knowing how stubborn your husband can be, he won't stop at nothing to find you."

"I made it perfectly clear on the letter I left that I will return soon." Camila stated.

"And on that letter that you left said [when] not [if] your condition gets worse. You jinxed yourself! I will tell you the one secret that has kept my marriage afloat. Don't make promises that you can't keep. Don't swear on anything in this life nor on the next one. Making a promise that is beyond your control is a deathwish. If you love him like you say you do, you wouldn't have kept your condition a secret." Camila couldn't argue with him, because he was right, dammit. "The only bright side to this is that you managed to make your husband and your sister stop bickering for a half hour."

"No!" Camila gasped.
"Yep! A new record." Paul confirmed it.

"Wait! Did Peter tell you anything? Is he on to me?" Camila asked.
"How should I know? I don't know where you're at!"
"Good! Bye!" Camila said in a singsong way as she hung up. Paul looked at the phone and couldn't believe that she hung up. Clever gal.

Peter got pulled over as the cop went leaned over asked him for his driver's licence. He grumbled and showed it to him.

Peter Wilson
Age: 42
SSN: XXX-XX-XXX9
And other private info that could be gathered from the man. One cop took the alcohol breath detector (as I would like to call it), when Peter came out negative on the alcohol intake, he was fined with $10,000. As if it wasn't bad enough that everything in this economy is getting more steep than necessary. And one of the cops gave a I'm-watching-you hand gesture before getting back in the police car and driving off.

Then another car came past Peter's at full speed with the audio on max with playing Fuck Tha Police. He looked at them incredulously, how come those cops are not pulling them over for speeding? Sheesh!

By 4 PM Lilly ended her shift and checked out. She received a text from her daughter.

(Hey, mom. Just got home, I'm making pasta. Do you want any?)

Lilly typed on the screen.

(Sure. Add another plate, I'm also bringing Camila over. Be nice!}

Then she sent it.

(FINE 😩) Rachel sent the text with another one saying. (Good luck telling that to Marcus.)

Lilly put her smartphone back in her purse before opening the trunk of her black Chevy, allowing Camila to put the luggage there.

"Rachel is making pasta, do you want any?"
"No thanks, the marinara sauce irritates my esophagus." Camila declined, while she shut the trunk.

"If that's the problem, I can make the pasta with cream cheese, with strawberry yogurt on the side to make it easier to digest." Lilly suggested while they got into the minivan.

"What I'm craving right now is to eat a baked potato with eggplants and parsley. Or an egg salad with celery." Camila commented while they buckled their seatbelts. Lilly turned on the engine and let the engine purr for several seconds while she took out her dusty rose lipstick and applied it, puckering her lips as she put the lipstick back into her purse. Upon a closer look, her lips had flecks of glitter.

"Now we're ready to go." Lilly put the lever in reverse and drove off, leaving the clinic, a slate Rav4 parked into the parking lot near the clinic and got out of the car.

Peter entered into the clinic, looking for his wife. He stood in front of the reception to ask about her whereabouts. "Excuse me, miss. Is my wife here? Her name is Camila Rose." The receptionist checked the names and signatures, both physical and digital. "No, sir."

He ran out of the clinic, and crossed the street to get into the parking lot. When he turned on the engine to put the lever in reverse, a white Mitsubishi came driving in and Peter's bumper bumped into the door of the car, making a dent on the right front door of the vehicle. Great, just his luck. The owner of the white Mitsubishi yelled at him.

Peter hit his forehead against the horn.

While Lilly drove, Camila received another missed call from her sister. She had to pick up or she wouldn't hear the end. "Hey, Daisy."

"About time you picked up! You had me worried sick! Where are you?" Daisy squawked over the phone.

"Daisy, I'm not telling you where I am and that's final. I'm going to get treatment after I get my test results. And tell Peter that I'll return home after I'm cured." Camila said before hanging up.

Daisy gasped. "The nerve."

"Does your husband know about this?" Lilly asked.

"Yes, but he is not happy about it." Camila admitted.

"I'd be worried too if one of my kids ran away like that." Lilly confessed, and Camila looked at her in astonishment. "Camila, you shouldn't run away from your problems."

"I don't wanna hear it."

"I'm telling you this because we've known each other since middle school. You used to sneak out of the house to run away from your stepfather." Lilly mentioned without ill will.

Her adolescence was difficult, back in the late 90s, her mother was sick and her stepfather was a drunken brute. He got violent after his second or third shot of vodka. Camila would sneak out of the window and would visit Lilly, before Patrick came into the picture, her family lived in poor conditions, but they lived peacefully.

After her father died of kidney failure, he left a lot of debts: medical bills, power bills, taxes, etc. Patrick was a chubby business man that worked in hotels and tourism. The man helped pay the debts, though he was a jovial man at the time, he started gambling after he married her mother. After making a bad investment and losing his business, he became an irascible man. Daisy was 10, and Camila was 5 when they saw his first outburst. As time went on, he became worse. He started beating their mother, exploiting her to clean more than she was used to. Daisy had to drag Camila out of the living room so that their stepfather wouldn't go after them. In their bedroom, they would hear plates breaking, along with their stepfather's yelling and their mother's sobbing and begging, it became the norm for them. When Daisy hit puberty, Patrick looked at her differently. He started being less angry with her and tried to be more approachable. She used to be calm, less apprehensive, her voice was sweet and delicate before she became a squawking, stuttering mess. Camila didn't know what was wrong with Daisy until one night, she saw that her stepfather was on top of her sister, muffling her screams with one grizzly hand as he thrusted inside of her repeatedly, grunting, tears drizzling down Daisy's cheeks as she kept her eyes shut. Patrick kissed her forcefully, drulling on her mouth as he hoisted her hips before releasing an animalistic yowl. Camila screeched and ran away from the house. She was 8 when she witnessed such a horrible event, childhood ruined, innocence lost for the both of them.

May be that's why she developed a runaway complex. The fight or flight response in a threatening situation, she acquired a nomadic persona as a way of self-help. To escape the prison of her past, if she became wandering woman she never would have met Peter. They were unlucky teenagers that clicked.
That is what led her to write the letter, to rekindle that spark that was dying. Even if the cancer that was consuming her would be a motivator to find herself again.

"If I hadn't ran away like I've been doing after all this time, I would've never met Peter. I created this runaway bombshell to protect myself from that predator."

"Camila, Peter isn't like your stepfather, he's husband."

"I know, is just...I feel like I'm reliving my mother's illness. I don't want to die the same way she did. Hurt, neglected, watching everything crumble in front of my eyes." Camila confessed, steeling herself. Imagining what her mother felt, immobile, worrying about a runaway daughter and a negligent husband.